Saturday, December 15, 2012

At the young age of 64 I have became a smoker—no not that
kind—the other kind.

For years I have wanted to try smoking meat but never wanted
to invest the time and effort to learn and do. This summer I bought an inexpensive smoker*
for my retirement and have tried, beef, pork, chicken and turkey so far. I have
had more hits** than misses** although some of my work was not of an award
winning nature.***

I have now found dozens of good sights to learn about
smoking meat and pick what I think will work best for me and go from there. I
have now developed my own dry rubs (this took a little time and experimentation).****
This week I am looking into brining**** and will attempt to make summer sausage
and Canadian bacon next week for Christmas. Wish me luck!*****

*Only looked at Wal-mart, K-mart and Menards (everything is
cheap in these stores) didn’t want to say cheap smoker in the above post
because that makes me look – well- cheap.

**Hit meaning we ate at least some of it, miss meaning we
tossed it out and the raccoons left it alone

***I have never actually won a cooking award but I dream
about them sometimes

****This means I spent a small fortune and threw out a lot
of good spices – WARNING-most online
recipes for rubs include Chili Powder, leave it out. The good rubs don’t
use it. Unless you are rubbing it on your chili, then of course rub-it-in.

***** I need it and I like the look of ***** in a post, kind
of dresses it up.

Monday, July 16, 2012

This one is a bit embarrassing – this old cowboy cook eats vegetables,
yep. I gave up the all meat and bread diet a few years back. Best thing about
this BBQ pile of vegetables is that they taste really good. And you can eat a
big ol’ steak with it or a giant burger. Chicken if you have some

-Here it is-

Scrape down the old grill, light it, and turn it up as high as she
will go – close the lid and go in the house. If you use charcoal pour a whole
bag of it in the grill get it goin’ good and let it heat for an hour or so.

1.Dice 2
potatoes (each about the size of the palm of your hand)

2.Dice a
tennis ball sized sized onion-make sure you read this step over again-if you
dice up a tennis ball this whole thing will be ruined.

3.Slice up
one nice sized carrot, slices about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. (nice and thin) If you have those little
bitty carrots cut them in half.

Spray a lot of spray cooking oil on a 18 inch
long sheet of tin foil (that’s what we called it in my day and I don’t want to
say aluminum foil as I am not sure how to spell aluminum)

Dump all the chopped veggies on the sheet of
foil (cleverly not using any metal names before the word foil)

Season with liberal amounts of: Salt, Pepper, Sage
and a sprinkle of celery seed (to taste)

Spray another bunch of cooking spray on the
pile of vegetables and plop a dollop of butter in the center (if you do not
have real butter –forget this step, don’t mess it up with margarine)

Fold up foil around and over and pinch tight on
the top

Open up the grill-it should be about 600
degrees by now-place on top rack and close (do it quick, don’t lose the heat)

If this step singes your eyebrows or burns the
hair from your arms-do not-do not- put butter on the burns. You already have
enough butter in the veggies

Go get the meat ready and put it on the bottom
rack and cook

The veggies will only take about 10 or 12
minutes if you keep the lid on the grill closed. If you can’t stand it and have
to peek and open the grill and pull back the foil to check your food you may
need to move these to the the bottom for awhile.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Nothing reminds me more of summer camping than s’mores, that
delicious kid treat that I still love in retirement. And what’s good about it?
Everything, it’s gooey, chocolaty, (not sure that chocolaty
is really a word, just think - melted Hershey bar in the middle of marshmallows
and graham crackers - you get the idea), and they are warm and delicious.

Ingredients-enough to make six S’mores

*12 Graham Crackers, one on top one on the bottom

*15 Marshmallows two in the middle of each s’more and three to snack on
as you work making these babies

*7 Chocolate Bars (I prefer Hershey’s, the
plain with the cool little breaking squares) one per s’more and one to snack
away on as you work.

Did you know that s’more first showed up in 1927? A Girl
Scout hand book/cookbook entitled, “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl
Scouts”. They called these mouth waterers, (I may have made up a second
word there) some more, since you
really could not eat only one. Later with a mouth full of food it likely
sounded like they were saying s’more instead of some more, although this sounds
more like something I would have said (the talking with the mouth full) in my
Cub Scout days, or maybe last week.

Build a great little camp fire or use your propane grill but
the campfire cannot be beat if you have a place plus hot dogs over an open fire
are delicious, no matter how old you are.

The rest is simple lay out the bottom graham crackers, unwrap
Hershey bars and place on top of graham crackers then roast marshmallows over
the fire, as soon as they catch fire pull them back, blow out the fire, (hum
Happy Birthday if you wish) drop on chocolate bar, slap on the other cracker
and eat immediately.

Great summer treat and best if eaten and made with grand kids
in a great/favorite picnic area.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Been away a long time-much too long for me and I hope for my
followers. Since I last posted I have retired and moved to a nice little town
on the Oregon Trail just east of Laramie Peak. No, I didn’t go crazy, I just
retired, (still live in Wyoming, will never leave). Retiring was a tough
decision, but a decision almost everyone will make some day. Not sure what a
typical retirement will look like yet, hope to rev up my blogs again, write a
bunch and travel. This month we have had grandkids most every day- but school
will start again and September will tell what our real retirement will be. I am
sure it will be both good and bad, I feel bad that I will no longer spend my
days with a classroom full of high school students, but am happy to not have to
read any more papers, post any more grades, or attend any more in-service.

Buttered Noodles Chicken Parmesan
- One of my favorites—this is good and meets my number one requirement, its quick!

Ingredients (my stuff list)

One can of chicken chunks - (yes, you purist types can use chicken breasts, frozen or fresh, just chunk up about a can full and get started.

Noodles - The hard, cheap, crunchy kind – nothing like the ones grandma used to make.

Butter – I like the unsalted, but I am an old guy, do not substitute margarine. Remember when we called it oleo? Some of the new better butter substitutes might work here.

Salt, Pepper, Sage, and Celery Seed – all to taste, go easy with the celery seed first time around.

Parmesan Cheese – fresh or as fresh as you can find it, PLEASE, none of the dry powder Parmesan from the pizza places, even if it was free.

Boil three or four handfuls of noodles to the al dente stage, (Not too hard, not mushy) to check, take out one noodle and throw at the nearest wall, if it sticks, should be about right – If your spouse is watching you might try just biting a noodle, if it tastes good, go with it-should have a tiny bit of white in the center. Note don’t forget to add salt and some oil to water, and use a big ol’ pan so the stuff won’t stick together.

While the noodles are boiling, open the can of chicken, pour off the liquid and rinse the meat. Not sure where they get the juice the chicken is in or even what it is. Remember mystery meat in the old high school cafeterias? This must be mystery chicken juice. Put chicken in very hot skillet and brown lightly to remove the rest of the nasty mystery liquid.
Melt half a stick of butter –or more or less- in a big ol’ soup bowl in the microwave. This is fun the butter will pop and splatter all over the inside of the microwave, very cool. Might want to cover it to save the marriage.

Drain noodles and season with the four great Wyoming spices listed above, pour butter over and mix good - sprinkle parmesan cheese and cover with chicken. Eat and enjoy – this is good; serve with ice cold Pepsi, Coke or tea.

Welcome Friends

Chef at work

Google+ Badge

Total Pageviews

Followers

About Me

Living in Wyoming, I love everything about the West, including very old and brand new western stories. I have published nine books, all of which are available online as soft covers, or eBooks. In addition to my books, I am an avid blogger and short story writer and have published more than a dozen historical articles, both online and in print. In addition to writing I am an avid reader, photographer, hiker and master gardener. When not reading or writing, I can be found playing golf or with camera in hand snapping photos.